


It Ain't Home But It's Somewhere

by Deannie



Series: The Tascosa Saga [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, M/M, Supermagnificent AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 08:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9115114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Vin looked like nothing so much as a broken sparrow as Chris pulled his horse to a stop and dropped to the ground to try to take the measure him. Vin lay on his side, his face a mask of agony, every inch of his skin sunburned and lips cracked and bleeding. No sweat stood out on his brow. His left wing was bent unnaturally behind him, sticking up in the air in a way that purely hurt to look at. His right wing was covering his front side, twitching.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is in response to the hc_bingo prompts taking care of someone, heat exhaustion, wild card [experiments by evil scientists], poisoning, and isolation and fulfills the straight line extra for hc_bingo 2016.
> 
> HUGE THANKS to Fara, as always. But especially on this one, as she helped me conceive the huge series of which this is the beginning. Within this work, I shamelessly include some paragraphs of Josiah-thought that she offered to me for her own dark purposes.

It was nearly eight months after the actual battle that Eli Joe Guthry arrived to investigate the claim. He had only recently heard of a drunken old Confederate failure who'd spun an insane tale of seven men who destroyed his entire regiment in a tiny Indian village in New Mexico territory. It was the kind of story all failures told—our opponent was eight feet tall with tree trunks for arms. We failed not because we were pathetic, but because they were gods.

It was a story that Eli Joe would have discounted entirely, except for one thing. The old soldier claimed that one of the men was young and fast, his aim unerring.

And that he flew.

Devin Tanner had been one of Eli’s greatest catches. A winged man, little more than a child, Tanner was terrified of being found out and paranoid as all hell because of it. Luring the freak into his trap had taken a lot of planning and the deaths of a few no-account Comanche with more loyalty than sense. He’d been paid well for that one, all right. And punished severely when Tanner escaped. No one got free of Tascosa, and no one escaped  _ him _ . Eli Joe was not a man to let a slight like that go unanswered.

A long talk with the confederate soldier yielded more details, and as a reward for the information, Eli left the man’s body where it might be found before the buzzards got to it. The Indian village was right where he’d said it would be, though it was bustling and well-built now. They’d obviously flourished, thanks to Tanner and his friends.

If it was Tanner.

He let night fall before he approached, riding far around the village itself and heading for the graveyard at the east edge of the valley, where the soldier had said they buried the bodies from the first attack. Where Tanner would be if he died in the second one, as the soldier had heard. The moon shone on gravemarker after gravemarker, and Eli Joe smiled as he came to the one he sought.

“‘Vin’ Tanner, huh?” he murmured, laughter in his voice at the thought that the birdman might think using a nickname would somehow hide him. "Looks like you got off easy. Jepson was hoping to get another shot at you." He untied his trail shovel from the saddle and got to digging. “At least we can take a look at your bones, you mangy freak.”

It was an hour of time and more than six feet of dirt before Eli Joe stopped working, a grimace on his face. Tanner wasn’t here and neither was anyone else. 

“Damn smart move, kid.” He panted with exhaustion and climbed out of the empty grave. “But you had to know we wouldn’t let you go without checking, didn’t you?”

He filled in the grave carefully, wishing he’d let Dr. Samson change him, like he had some of the others. Not too much—he didn’t aim to be a freak like Tanner or nothing—but something like that guy Erskine had built before the war. Super strong. Hell, he even heard the guy could smell you coming a mile away. Maybe that last thing wouldn’t be such a good talent all the time, though.

He’d spread rocks back over the grave, trying to make it look like it hadn’t been touched, and was walking toward his horse to take off and see what he could find in the local towns, when a twig snapped behind him. 

“It is late to be visiting the dead,” a brash young voice told him.

Eli turned to face the brave who challenged him. The Indian’s knife was held ready, flashing its warning in the night, but Eli Joe was calm and cool. “Reckon I just couldn’t wait to see if what I’d heard was true,” he said. “I had a friend named Vin Tanner, once,” he continued, oozing sincerity. “A kind of… flighty man, if you know what I mean.” The brave stiffened warily, and Eli sighed, as if the reaction confirmed his worst fear. “I heard tell he met his end here, and… I had to see.”

“You have seen,” the Indian said steadily, as if he almost bought the act but couldn’t let down his guard. “The grave is there. Say to him what you must and go.”

Eli turned back toward the grave, sad and unassuming. He gave the Indian just enough time to relax his grip on his knife, then spun around hard, slamming the heel of his hand into the brave’s throat. Caught by surprise, the man could only double over in pain, and Eli brought the shovel crashing down onto his back, leaving the young fool in a heap.

He fingered the knife at his own belt, considering gutting the Indian right here. But the rattle of his breath told Eli he’d likely crushed his voicebox. Even if he lived, which was doubtful, he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what had happened. Or who he was looking for.

Leaving his knife in its place, Eli sighed. He’d have to move the body—well, the soon-to-be body, anyway. He’d done a good job of covering the hole by moonlight, but it’d be easier in the daylight to know someone had dug up the grave that wasn’t.

He headed back to his horse to grab his rope, figuring to drag the Indian farther down the valley on his way out of it. The track was bare and rocky. He wouldn’t leave a trail that many could follow. The moon was full, so he could ride a ways before worrying about being able to see. He’d have to send a telegram to let Tascosa know that it wasn’t Tanner, and there was a town right nearby, he knew. 

He’d find the winged freak this time. Tanner had been here, after all, and he had to have come from somewhere. Eli wrapped the rope around the Indian’s legs and around the pommel on his saddle, then mounted up and headed east with the Indian dragging along behind. There were actually two small towns nearby, perfect for hiding away in if you were on the run. He reckoned Tanner had been in one of them when this epic battle happened. He would always get himself in trouble helping people who were too weak to warrant the help. Was his Achilles' heel. Hell, Jepson said it was what he liked best about the kid.

If Eli was lucky, someone there’d remember him. He let go of the rope and rode on, leaving the Indian to roll into the brush on the side of the road. Hell, maybe Tanner was still there, though Eli afforded the paranoid cuss more sense than that.

Either way, Eli had some hunting to do.

********

Vin lit out for his morning ride before the sun rose. In that purple just before dawn he could fly undisturbed, spread his wings for a while without worrying about being found out.

Not that he did worry as much these days. Four Corners was supposed to have been a place to stop for a little while, build up enough of a stake for some more supplies before he moved on. Because he always moved on. It was really the only safe thing to do when you were someone like him.

Chris Larabee had changed that way of thinking. Hell, they all had. He had six men as different as him, all ready to back him. Was strange not to be alone with his secret, but it felt good, too. Not that he was ready to take wing in the middle of town, or anything, but he felt like, even if he had to, he could maybe survive to see another day with the six of them around.

He'd been running for more than three years before he locked eyes with Larabee and saved Nathan's life. And just that one act had been enough to stop him in his tracks. 

He’d barely been a man when Eli Joe trapped him. Truth be told, he supposed he'd never really been a kid, either—not like JD was. He worried about that sometimes. Worried that he'd missed something in his growing up that might have made him less damn stupid about going out into the world. Something that might have saved some innocents their lives and him those years of hell.

But it was over now, he told himself sharply. Done with. If Tascosa came back to haunt him, he'd deal with it, or die trying. He wouldn't let himself be taken again, and he wouldn't let them take any of the others, either. Though sometimes, when they were all in sync, he figured they could take on the whole damn hellhole and win.

Shoot, maybe Josiah had something with that Power of Seven talk.

Shaking his head fondly at the thought of the preacher, Vin headed toward Smugglers Pass, letting Peso pick his way as he would in the dim light. The area was dry and hot and useless in the heat of August. No one’d be traveling there. The perfect place for him to be himself. For a little while, anyway…

*********

Nathan had barely dropped off to sleep when someone was pounding on his door in the bare light of dawn. 

“Nathan!” Akando cried. “Nathan, you must come! Dianday is hurt!”

Nathan rolled out of his bed and opened his door, a look of concern chasing sleep from his eyes. The exhaustion of helping little Jimmy MacIntyre with his croup was forgotten in Akando’s obvious distress.

“What happened?” he asked, waving the child into his clinic so he could get his things together.

“We don’t know,” the boy said, in a dither. “Rain came upon him as she went to gather roots.” He shook his head. “He was tied by the feet on the side of the road. He is not breathing well, and his throat is black and bruised.”

Nathan nodded while he worked and he was ready to go by the time the boy finished speaking. “Sounds like he ran into something, all right,” he said. “You go ask the stable boy downstairs to saddle my horse, all right? I’m gonna run over to the jail real quick—let Buck know where I’m going.”

As he expected, Buck had felt him coming. “Trouble, Nathan?” he asked, glancing at the drunkard who was sleeping off a bad night in one of the cells.

“Something’s happened to Dianday out at the Seminole village,” Nathan replied. “I ain’t sure what, but it sounds like it wasn't an accident.”

Buck nodded. “Need some help?”

Nathan shook his head. “I don’t reckon so. I can take a look, see what happened. If I need help, I’ll send Akando back for it.”

“All right,” Buck told him. “You be careful, though. I’ll let the others know. I saw Vin riding out earlier for his usual, and Chris is out at his cabin. Rest of us’ll be around here, though, if you need us.”

“Nathan, please!” Akando was at the door, and Nathan watched Buck’s eyebrows draw tight as he picked up on the child’s worry.

“Get going,” he said. “And be careful!” he repeated as the two of them headed outside and mounted up.

***********

Eli Joe was nearly to the town of Four Corners when he heard someone coming down the track toward him in the questionable dark that comes before the sunrise. Pulling his horse behind a stand of rocks, he listened until he heard the rider pass, the horse trotting and meandering and heading vaguely west. Deep desert there. No reason for a man to head out into that in the heat of late summer.

So imagine his God damned surprise when he caught sight of a Union cavalry hat—just like the one Tanner had stolen when he shot his way out of the caves in Tascosa.

Hell of a coincidence.

Eli Joe followed as far back as he could without losing the trail, thinking on his luck. Hell, this was going to be easy—for him. He’d made sure before he left Texas that he had everything he needed to make it all kinds of difficult for the flyer he was following.

Eventually, Tanner brought his horse to a stop in a stand of trees by a pathetic little waterhole. He didn’t have much gear with him, and only a couple of canteens. Couldn’t be planning on staying out here long.

In the growing dawn, Eli saw that Tanner was wearing a padded shirt, thick at the back to hide his wings, and Eli watched as he stripped it off, revealing that unnatural bundle of feathers that stretched from his neck to his ass. Kid had filled out in the last few years. Probably learned some things, too. But there were lessons he’d forgotten, clearly—like a freak’s place in the world.

He didn’t figure Tanner’d come quietly. He was counting on him  _ not _ doing that, in fact. The memory of him when he was first captured, too damn young to know better, firing on all comers and yelling his defiance like some winged fury prodded at Eli. But it was followed by the memory of that same boy, broken in body and wing and spirit, hanging from his chains like he didn’t care what happened to him. They both had their appeal. Eli settled his guns on his hips and smiled to himself. Damn, this was going to be fun any way it went.

He stepped out from the trees he’d been hiding behind, the cocking of his right-hand gun loud in the quiet morning.

Tanner spun on him, his wings snapping out full like he’d take flight in a second. Wouldn’t do him any good if he did, though. Eli Joe had made sure he was ready for that this time.

“You’re a long way from home, Eli Joe,” Vin said, hand straying toward the sawed off rifle that was tied down good at his side. Hell, the damn bird even flew armed.

“And you’re a long way from dead.” He gestured with his Colt for Tanner to lose the rifle. “Or maybe not so far.”

“You ain’t taking me back there,” Tanner growled. But he was scared. 

Eli grinned ferally. “I visited your grave last night.” Tanner’s eyes went wide with horror and it was a damn fine sight. Boy was quick on the uptake. “Yeah, sorry. Figure the village won’t miss one more useless Indian, though, will they?”

“God damn it, Eli—” Tanner spat, rushing toward him, his hand on his rifle.

Eli Joe fired, hitting him in that hand and splattering blood everywhere. With a shout, Tanner tried to take flight and his horse, too close to him, reared up and bolted. Tanner cursed and got in one long, powerful downstroke. He managed, somehow, to free his rifle and take a shot left-handed, the charge going far wide into the desert.

Eli’s shot didn’t, hitting the damn fool high up in the meat of his left wing. Tanner screamed and faltered, his gun falling to the ground, and  _ still _ he tried to fly away. 

“Stubborn as hell, as always,” Eli said, watching him flounder like a baby jackdaw. “You know that’s what Jepson likes about you.”

Tanner got another ten feet off the ground, the bastard. 

“Stubborn only gets you so far, though.” And Eli took out his other gun and fired.

The soft metal bulb hit Tanner high up in the chest and broke open, the shallow wound it made in his skin filling with a poison Eli had been promised would be long and slow and agonizing. The birdman dipped, coming close to the ground before trying to rise up again, but it wasn’t going to do him any good. He was going to pay in the worst way possible.

No one crossed Eli Joe. No one.

*********

The fire in his chest was what finally drove Vin to the ground. It spread, like acid, burning through his chest and shoulders and into his wings, making them heavy. With it came a fog that was both familiar and not. 

_ “I think they figured to try this one on you more because you pissed them off than because they think it’ll work, Wings.” _

Jepson? The hell was he doing here? Vin tried to get to his feet—hell, even to his knees—but something held him down. Or up...

Eli Joe’s face was suddenly too close. Too… something. Vin shook his head to clear it.  _ What...? _

“Don’t feel so good, does it?” Eli Joe said, his voice strange and grating. The words looked weird in the air. He could read them though. Not like regular words at all. “Burns, they tell me. I think old Dr. Weller had a hand in that one.”

_ Weller _ , Vin thought, fear spiking in his brain at the memory. Weller had been good with his potions. Herbs and acids and… God  _ damn _ it hurt! His wings twitched, the left one feeling numb. But he could fly, if he could just figure out which way was up.  _ Wonder how long it’ll take to kill me? _

“Don’t worry, though,” Eli Joe told him, stretching all the hell over the place, his smile like knives, his face liquid. “It won’t kill you.” God, why not!?

His blood boiled and his eyes teared. His mouth tasted like old dead somethings and… The world was strange. Damn strange and  _ painful! _ Vin cried out as a spasm went through him and couldn’t believe how loud the scream was. 

“No, wouldn’t want you dying on me,” Eli Joe went on. “I gotta take you home.”

Home? Yeah. That sounded good. Nathan. If he could get to Nathan, he’d help.

“Nathan…”

“Who the hell is Nathan?” Eli Joe laughed. It sounded so odd. “Tanner, I’m talking about your real home. Tascosa.”

Vin’s blood froze as the word appeared like a dragon in the sky, wrong and evil. “No,” he whispered, wings flailing as he tried to fly, to escape. He flung out an arm and felt it hit something, but his hand… why didn’t his hand work right? He wouldn’t go back there. Rather die.

_ Don’t worry, though. Won’t kill you. _

“You ain’t taking me back,” he screamed, the sound so quiet he couldn’t hear it himself.

“It’s where you belong, Devin,” Eli Joe purred. “You remember. Home sweet—”

Vin’s hand that wasn’t really much of a hand had closed around something metal and he brought the thing to bear like a club, watching in fascination as Eli Joe’s head split clean into two pieces and floated away, the weight of his body coming off of Vin’s and letting his wings free.

He was in the air in seconds, but the air wasn’t right anymore. It was stiff and wrong, always yawing left or right but never where he needed it to be. He gave a hard downstroke, shouting from the pain of it, then another and another until the desert and the two pieces of Eli Joe were dots in a sea of gray clouds.

He could feel the rings still in his webbing, pulling on him. Jepson had thought they’d hold him, but he knew better. He’d rather die than stay there and let them see how he worked.

If only the air was thinner. If only he could get home.

_ Home? _

He veered into the sun, hoping it was where home was, and tried to stay aloft. The fat, hot air refused to help him, though. Like swimming through molasses. But he had to get back. Back to…

_ “Back to your real home. Tascosa.” _

No. No,  _ not _ home. Never home. Just somewhere—

The world was so wrong now that he barely felt it when the ground rose up to meet him, rolling him over and over. He tried to curl his wings around himself like a cocoon, crying out soundlessly when his left one popped hard at the shoulder, the feel of the ground hitting the bullet wound a second later suddenly setting off sparks of pain through his back and chest and wing and who knew what-all else. 

He finally came to a stop, breath coming in harsh, forced gasps, like he was a bellows that was blocked with soot. It hurt. All of it.  _ God it hurt! _

“Well, well, Devin,” Samson’s voice rattled in his brain, soft and silky and wrong _ wrong _ wrong. He lifted his head and looked around in panic but there was nothing to see. Had the old man got Ezra, too? Figured out his power and sucked it away like he had some of the others? He was bad enough when Vin could see him, but invisible… And what he’d’ve done to Ezra to get it...

“We’ve missed you, my boy,” Samson continued unseen, his voice that same disturbing purr. “But here you are back again. Home sweet home.”

“No,” Vin begged, closing his eyes and trying to marshall his strength to run. He stumbled to his feet, his right wing folding neat to his back while his left one hung useless, black pin feathers trailing in the dust. “No! I ain’t going!”

“Run all you want, Devin,” Samson told him, as Vin tried to do just that, his body lurching, bad wing dragging behind him in the dust. “We’ll always be here waiting.”

In the rising sun, in the burning desert, Vin Tanner ran for his life.

*********

“How is he?” Rain asked, crouching down next to Nathan as he sat on the bench outside of Dianday's house. 

Nathan looked gray and tired, but not as bad as she had seen him before. The gods were fickle in their honors. So many, like Nathan, had to pay high prices for their gifts.

“Resting,” Nathan said, squinting into the noonday sun. “Reckon it’ll be a few hours before he comes to.”

“But he will recover?” she asked, though the look on his face assured her that he would. 

“Yeah. He was lucky.” Nathan’s face became hard and angry. “Bad enough he was dragged, but someone tried to crush his windpipe. That he was alive at all when I got here is a miracle. It’ll take a while before I can get him talking again. Just wanted to fix enough for him to live, first.”

“Tastanagi has set patrols now,” she assured him. “They will make sure we are safe until we can find out what happened.” She took his hand. “You should rest.”

Nathan shook his head, his gentle smile warming her insides. “I’m all right. Had a long night of caring for the new baby in town. Got a case of croup that it took a while to lick.”

Rain kissed the hand she held, grinning up at him. “You are a good man, Nathan Jackson,” she told him. 

As always, he denied her praise. “Better than the man who done this,” he said quietly. “Once Dianday's rested some, we’ll see about finding out who did this to him.”

“Once you both have rested,” she said firmly, standing and pulling him up with her. He let her lead him unresisting to the great hall and she settled him on the bench inside, where it was cool and dark and comforting. “I will come for you when he wakes.”

“But if this man—” he tried to protest.

“If this man comes, he will find us ready,” she promised him. “We are not defenseless now.”

Nathan grinned at that and laid back, his eyes closing. “No, you definitely ain’t that.”

Rain watched him fall to sleep before she rose, straightening her skirts. She told him only the truth. If this man came—the man who had hurt Dianday so—they would be ready for him.

******

The man who had hurt Dianday was in a world of hurt himself at that moment. Every step his horse took jarred his aching head and sent his anger a notch higher. When he caught up to Tanner, he was going to make him pay so bad. The damn poison was going to look like a blessing compared to the tortures he’d inflict.

He’d regained consciousness about two hours ago, with the midmorning sun baking at him. His head had been stiff and sticky on one side, and he’d reached up and hissed at it, coming away with blood.

“God damn it, Tanner,” he growled, opening his eyes wider and looking around. His horse was tied right where he’d left him, but of Tanner and his horse, there was no sign, though Tanner’s sawed-off lay on the ground, blood on the stock to match the blood on his own head.

“Well, shit,” Eli Joe whispered, annoyed with himself for letting the winged freak fly off on him. He crawled over to the pitiful little waterhole, dunking his head in it to clear away the blood caked on him, and to cool down his skin where it’d been baking in the sun all these hours.

Recovered as much as he was likely to be, he stumbled toward his horse, trying to think past the aching and come up with a plan. Once mounted, he saw the tracks of Tanner’s horse, but it didn’t take but a mile to see that the thing had bolted in terror and was running scared. Riderless. 

God damned bird had taken to the wing, and while he shouldn’t have been able to fly far with Weller’s poison in him, Eli had no idea what direction he’d hared off in.

Best to get into town, recover his wits a bit, maybe listen in and find out if Tanner had a place he might hole up. It’d be a damn shame if Tanner died out there in the desert, but riding around in circles might leave Eli Joe just as dead. And he wasn’t ending up that way.

Growling as his head throbbed harder, Eli rode into Four Corners and headed for the boarding house. 

He tied up his horse at the hitching post and walked inside, pulling his hat down low and hoping he didn’t look too much a sight. 

“Room for the night,” he asked, throwing a nickel on the desk. The young man working looked up at him, opening his mouth and closing it again. “Lord, mister, are you okay?” he asked finally. 

Eli smiled, trying to look a little chagrined. “Horse threw me. I’m fine, but I sure could use a place to lie down for a while.”

The boy jumped at the pointed comment and spun around to get him a key. “I’m sorry, mister. Room 3, here on the main floor.” He looked at him critically. “I can call for our healer, if you want? He ain’t always in town. And he’s colored—but he’s a real good guy. Fix you right up.”

“I might take you up on it later,” he told him, taking the key and hefting his saddlebag. “Right now, I figure a nap and a chance to clean up is the best thing for me.”

“Sure thing, mister,” the clerk said. “I’ll get some warm water to you from the bath house.”

Eli tipped his hat, grimacing at the pain it caused. “Thanks,” he said, heading for the room. “You folks here in Four Corners are right friendly.”

Friendly enough, he hoped, to tell him later where Vin Tanner might get to if he was in trouble.

******

Vin Tanner was in hell. 

The sun beat down on him and he could feel the chains that bastard Jepson had strung him up with, trailing along after him where they were still wrapped around his left wing. He’d shaken the other ones, but the cost was this horrible, endless shaking in his limbs. His teeth chattered as the sun froze him.

He was going to die out here, Samson and his evil laugh chasing him every step of the way.

_ Don’t worry, though. Won’t kill you. _

“I should have killed  _ you _ from the first, Eli,” he muttered, the words flights of black crows that Josiah would have run from. The thought of the man warmed him through, even with the frigid sunlight soaking into him.

Josiah. He wasn’t home, but he was somewhere.

_ “Home sweet home, Tanner,” Jepson said from behind him, a smile in his voice as he yanked on Vin’s chain. _ Vin fell on his ass in the sand and cried out soundlessly, too burned and froze and broken to give voice to his pain.

“No,” he growled, and that, he could hear, low and gravelly. “No, God damn you.” He shoved himself to his feet, pulling against the chain on his wing and stumbling forward. “I ain’t going back. I ain’t going home.”

He clawed his way up the next ridge, the cacti shoving needles into him just the way the doctors did sometimes. But never again. Jepson and them all could go to hell. He’d be damned if he was gonna let them do it again.

“I’ll die first.”

_ Don’t worry, though. Won’t kill you. _

“Shut the fuck up, Eli,” Vin all but sobbed. 

And he scrambled on.

*******

Chris's ranch was far enough outside of town that he didn't have to worry so much about people coming to visit. He had all kinds of things that had to be done, of course, but more importantly, this was the one place he could just be himself. He had denied the abilities his reengineering gave him for a lot of years now, and using them again was… comforting, he guessed. Like he was finally where he needed to be, so he could be  _ what _ he needed to be. 

He’d started working on the fences to the north around dawn and even with a stop for lunch along the way, he’d made his way around to the other end by mid afternoon, using the speed and strength and energy that was a part of him now to get the job done in half the time it would have taken a normal man. The day was even hotter than your usual for August, and Chris hated every minute of the beating sun, but the fence needed finishing. If he was staying here...

He snorted in the heat, thinking of what was keeping him in Four Corners. Friendship, a fierce sense of belonging, Buck and JD and Vin and Josiah and Nathan. And Ezra. He hadn't thought to feel like he was a part of something again. Figured, after the facility was destroyed, after that second God damned war, after Sarah and Adam... He was done. Burned one too many times—a lost soul even Buck was hard-pressed to soothe.

But then he'd glanced across a road and looked into blue eyes that were as young and earnest as his own had been when he ran off to war. Vin and the others had reminded him what it was like to fight for something; what it was like to care. 

He bent to his work again with more vigor, despite the heat and the sun burning his skin. If he was staying here, he was going to make a proper start of it. Maybe talk to Maccabee over in Eagle Bend about buying a stud and a couple of mares.

He was thinking about taking a break when he heard the sound of hoofbeats, a ways off but headed toward him, sort of. Too far out to really figure who it was yet, but he reckoned he’d better plan for their arrival if they came, friend or foe. He headed toward his gun belt, on a stump a hundred yards down the line of fence.

If it was Ezra, out for a visit, he’d never hear the end of it. “I fail to understand how a man who is, for all intents and purposes, superhuman should be worried about bandits out to steal his horses,” he’d said once when Chris had met him at the door of his cabin with his guns still on. “Theoretically, couldn’t you simply run them down?”

Ezra’d paid for that. Chris smirked at the memory. Was probably exactly why he’d said it.

But no… It wasn’t Ezra—Chris knew the sound of Chaucer’s hooves, and even though the horse was too far out for his enhanced sense of smell to scent him properly, Chris knew it wasn’t that high-stepper. This horse was lame, as well. Or possibly he’d thrown a shoe…

Chris had the gun belt on before the scent finally came to him and he relaxed. “Tanner, what the hell?” he murmured, recognizing the smell of Peso mixed very faintly with Vin’s peculiar buffalo and hawk. Chris jogged to the cabin to meet him, wondering what had happened to the poor horse—

—and watched, his alarm rising, as Peso limped out of the trees lining the track to the cabin, saddled and sweating and very much alone.

“Hey! Hey,” he called to the horse quietly, walking up to him with care. Peso was spooked. He was lathered, too, so he’d been running a while before he hurt himself. Even now, he danced in place, refusing to put weight on his left foreleg. Chris reached out and took hold of his bridle, using his strength to hold the horse’s head in place. “Let me see, boy, okay?” he murmured.

It took a few long minutes of rubbing his head and neck before Peso would let him lift the hoof, and Chris spent the time splitting his worry between the horse and how badly he’d actually hurt himself and the horse’s rider and where the hell  _ he _ was. Once the hoof was examined, though, Chris breathed a sigh of relief on one account. Peso had thrown a shoe and kept running. As a result, he must have foundered at one point, his front knees showing signs of a fall. His hoof was swollen a bit, and he’d picked up a stone to add to his troubles, but all in all, it was nothing a little care wouldn’t fix. 

Which left Chris to worry about Vin.

“Where’s your man, Peso?” he asked softly, leading the poor thing to the barn and setting him up in one of the empty stalls. Water and oats had Peso placid enough to let Chris care for his hurts, and he left the gelding to rest, leading Job out of the stall beside him.

“Sorry, boy,” he told the lame horse. “Don’t mean to leave you here alone, but I need to go find him.”

He headed to the cabin to pack a few things, and he and Job were headed out moments later.

“What did you get into, Vin?” he whispered, following Peso’s trail as it meandered through the brush.

*******

_ “Well, hell, I didn’t think he’d be able to  _ fly _ with the damn things on!” _

Vin grinned coldly. He’d surprised Jepson with that one. Was really just a matter of not caring how much the chains hurt—well, that and the potion they’d forced down his throat. The one that hadn’t lasted long, but had given him enough strength to snap his chains and head for freedom. Not that  _ that _ had lasted, either. Never did.

Damn, he could use that potion now, though. He shook and twitched with weakness, nothing real and nothing unreal, and the chain still attached to his left wing burned and tore at it, leaving him earth-bound and agonized. He looked up at the little hill above him that he reckoned might not actually be there. Hurt and stuck on land and seeing things, sure. But damned if he’d give up just because of that.

_ “I don’t know why you’re still trying, Wings,” Jepson said, that sound to his voice like he was conversing with his favorite pet.  _ Vin was in the desert and the cave at the same time, and it didn’t make sense, but there was no point in trying to figure it out.  _ “It’s not like we won’t find you again. We will always— _ always— _ take you home.” _

“The hell you will,” Vin rasped as he climbed to the top of the rise and tried to catch his breath. He looked down into the valley before him and felt a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope.

The cabin was little more than a blur at the bottom, what with his eyes all strange, but somehow, Vin knew it was safe. If it was real. He tried to make his way down to it slowly, but the world just moved too damn much, and he couldn’t catch himself, tripping hard and tumbling to the bottom of the rise. 

“God  _ damn _ ,” he cried out as he hit the bottom, at the end of his rope now. Tears were running down his face and it all hurt so fucking bad! Somewhere in his head, he knew that he wasn’t seeing right or thinking right or any damn thing, and that that was all Eli Joe’s fault, somehow. Still, he raised his head and looked at the cabin, at how far from him it was, at the fence he’d have to climb to get there. God, it had to be real. His mind wouldn’t think up someplace safe and put it so damn far away...

_ “Just give it up, Wings. Give in and let us come get you,” Jepson whispered. _

Another voice intruded, welcome and soothing and  _ right _ .

_ “Or you could just live through this and move on,” Chris Larabee told him. _

Vin smiled, feeling his lips crack over sand-blasted teeth. The blood tasted horrible, but at least it was wet. God, he was hot. “That’d probably be the easier thing to do,” he managed to rasp.

“But I’m afraid we just can’t let you, Devin.” Samson shed Ezra’s silver scales and crouched over him, red eyes cold in the heat, though the sun still shone through him like a pane of hazy glass. But he was  _ here _ in a way Jepson’s words didn’t seem to be. “We need you with us, my boy.” The… monster… leaned toward him, one soft, haunting hand reaching for his neck. Vin panicked, shoving against the ground and trying to back away before that evil touch could get to him. 

“CHRIS!” he screamed, loud as he could, praying the cabin was real.  _ Something _ was real. The sound of his own call, echoing in his ears, sent him into a darkness he prayed Larabee would be able to pull him out of, before Samson dragged him back into the cave. Chris could bring that old dragon down. Vin was sure of it.

If Larabee had even heard him.

*******

Chris was a mile down the track when he came upon the place where Peso had foundered. He looked around without dismounting just yet, wondering if the horse had thrown his rider, if Vin was somewhere here, knocked out, or worse. He wouldn’t have just taken to the wing and left Peso injured. And if he had, he’d’ve headed for the cabin instead of Four Corners, wouldn’t he? It was sure as hell closer.

He looked around, worried and irritated. “Tanner, what—”

“ _ CHRIS! _ ” 

The word froze him solid, and for a minute he was thrown back to the last war. To Buck, missing for days, trapped and tortured and screaming in his mind for Chris to come for him.

But this wasn’t the war, and it wasn’t Buck. And Vin’s scream—pain-filled and terrified—wasn’t in his mind at all. 

He turned Job around and galloped for the cabin as fast as the big horse could go.

*********

_ “This’d go better for you if you’d stop fighting, kid,” Jepson said, fixing the chains back to the rings they’d pierced through his wing skin that first day. The one on his left wing was covered in pus and blood from where he’d torn the membrane getting free, but Jepson didn’t give a shit. “Now you gotta learn another lesson.” _

_ The leg irons and chains on his arms were already in place and Devin felt like a trussed up prarie hen. “Seems like maybe we’ve been giving you a little too much credit,” Jepson said coldly. “Figured you knew better than to run.” He shook the chain on that left wing and the pain was so bad, Devin screamed.  _

_ “Fuck you!” Devin whispered when he was done, his insides tight with fear and his head burning with anger. “I wasn’t just gonna watch while you all cut into her like that!” The image of that girl, her hair white and eyes fathoms old, screaming as they sliced into her to see how she worked... _

_ Jepson laughed. “Hell, Tanner, she’d’ve done the same for you if you’d gone first.” _

_ Jepson got right up in his face, and Devin fought back a sob. This man… this  _ demon _ … he loved what he did, you could see it in his eyes.  _

_ “But it seems like you’re a better one for practicing the soft stuff on. For now.” _

_ Devin was never getting out of here alive. _

_ As expected, Jepson picked up a wicked looking needle with something red and green and shimmering in it. "I have no idea what this one does, but I figure we'll leave you a day or two to figure it out." _

_ Damn stuff burned like fire going in. _

Don’t worry, though. Won’t kill you.

The last words made Vin look up in confusion. Jepson still smiled at him, watching him with a kind of hunger in his eyes, the now-empty needle in his hand. But the words were Eli Joe’s. Weren’t they? The cave beyond Jepson was somehow also the edge of a familiar ranch in some other time and that hurt Vin’s head to think about, so he didn’t.

_ “Now, I’m gonna leave you alone and see how this takes, okay, Wings?” Jepson said, patting him on the face. He stepped down from the rock he’d chained Vin to. Vin was standing on it and lying balls first in the dirt at the same time. “I’ll come back in a couple of days. No one will disturb you, Kid.” His smile made Vin’s gut clench. “Who’d come for you anyway, right?” _

_ And then he walked out, the door clanging shut and locking behind him and hanging between Vin and a cabin he knew he needed to get to. Vin shut his eyes against the dual vision of there and someplace else and wished both of them would just go away. The shining acid in his veins rolled and cut at him and he waited to feel whatever hell it was going to show him. Wasn't the first time they'd shot him up like this—looking to add something to him, Samson said once. Make him more useful. Thankfully none of it ever lasted, but it was never pleasant. _

_ Vin yanked on the chains, feeling the rings dig farther into his skin as he did. A buzzing sound reached his ears and his heartbeat sounded louder in his head. He was going to die here, all right. But not soon enough.  _

“Vin!”

_ A different hand ghosted across his cheek. Chris? No. Chris wasn’t here. Chris wasn’t coming. Who’d come for him anyway? _

“Vin, can you hear me?”

_ The words were too loud. Too damned loud. Vin curled into himself, feeling his left wing protest and burn. He couldn’t…. God, he couldn’t do this again. He wasn’t going back. He’d rather just die right here and have done. He’d tried it before—just fading away. They never fucking let him though, and the cool hand on his face was gonna stop him from trying again. _

_ Fuck that. _

_ He was pretty sure Chris said something else, but he slid away into the darkness. Jepson had claimed once, before Vin escaped for good, that he’d finally broken him. Hell, maybe he was right. Because Vin just couldn’t hope that the old man was talking to him. If Chris Larabee wasn’t real, then Vin was in hell.  _

_ God, maybe he’d never left it at all... _

*********

Vin looked like nothing so much as a broken sparrow as Job galloped up to him. Chris pulled his horse to a stop and dropped to the ground to try to take the measure of the young flyer. Vin lay on his side, his face a mask of agony and his eyes scrunched tightly closed. Every inch of his skin was sunburned and his lips were cracked and bleeding. No sweat stood out on his brow. His left wing was bent unnaturally behind him, sticking up in the air in a way that purely hurt to look at. His right wing was covering his front side, twitching. 

Hell, all of him was twitching, which was terrifying to watch.

“Vin!” Chris called, going down on his knees and laying a hand on the sun-baked skin of his cheek. Vin’s face contorted in confusion at the touch and Chris pressed what he hoped was his advantage. “Vin, can you hear me?”

He held his breath, hoping Vin would stir, speak,  _ something _ . Instead, a look of such complete despair came over his face that Chris’s heart hurt for him. His face looking even younger than it was, Vin Tanner slipped away and his tortured breathing evened out into something thick and slow.

“Vin, just stay with me, okay?” Chris murmured, knowing that the hunter couldn’t hear him. 

What could he do? What the hell had happened, anyway?

Chris shook his head, trying to put out of his mind any reasons behind how Vin got this way.  _ First things first, right, Peg? _ he thought, working on how he was going to move Vin’s broken wing without hurting him further. God, he wished she was here now. Or Nathan. 

There was no time to find anyone, though. He’d get Vin to the cabin, get him as comfortable as he could, and figure out what to do from there. When he’d left town yesterday, everything had been fine. What the hell…?

_ Move the sound wing first, _ he thought. If he could roll Vin all the way over onto his stomach, he could maybe figure out how to fold the broken wing enough to move him. But lifting his right wing away just uncovered more problems.

“God damn it, Vin,” he said, anger gnawing at him as he realized that this was no accident—that someone had hurt the flyer. Badly. “Whoever did this to you ain’t fit to die quickly.”

Vin’s right hand was mangled. Shot through, it had been bleeding for a while, though all the fingers were still in place. Chris wondered how much power Nathan had, and whether he could heal it like new. It had taken weeks of sessions with Peggy before his own injuries had come close to being healed, and the scars were still thick and obvious, but that had been something else altogether. Maybe this was fixable... He moved on from examining the limb in question and stopped suddenly.

"Hell."

Chris reached out carefully and touched a small wound on Vin's chest. A misshapen glob of metal fell out of the shallow hole at the movement and he cursed. Chris had seen wounds like this before, up close. That explained the shaking.

An old musket ball, hollowed and filled, was a great way to deliver damn near whatever poison you wanted. Sure, a dart would do you if it was close-range, but from more than ten or fifteen feet, they weren’t reliable. Shot from a pistol, though, a musket ball could hit a man from fifty yards or more if the marksman was worth his salt, the impact of the soft metal not enough to injure badly, but enough to deliver whatever was inside. From the shallowness of the wound, Vin’d been maybe fifteen, twenty yards away.

Jesus, he hoped the kid hadn’t been flying when he was hit, but that wing said he just might’ve been.

“Vin?” Chris called again, shaking the young man but mindful of the tremors that ran through him. Vin made no answer, not that Chris had expected him to. He wondered what the hell had been in that ball, but he supposed it didn’t matter a damn bit right at the moment. He was out here alone with his friend and he had nothing to help him.

No. He had  _ him _ . Wasn’t much, but he had it. He rolled Vin onto his stomach, shocked by how light the man felt. That left wing didn’t twitch or shake the way the right one did, and Chris knew that was a bad sign. He looked it over, trying to find the break, and realized with a sigh that it wasn’t broken at all. The flying shoulder was out of joint. So was one of what Nathan called Vin’s knuckles.

Chris looked down into Vin’s face, twisted and pained even in his stupor, and groaned with regret. “I’m sorry, Vin,” he murmured. “It’s gotta be done.”

Gritting his teeth, he twisted the wing’s shoulder joint, pulling it out until the whole thing popped in his hands and Vin grunted in pain but didn’t wake. Chris shook his head and continued doing what needed doing.

With the knuckle in place as well, Chris still couldn’t get the wing to fold properly, but at least it moved. And like the rest of him now, it twitched.

“Let’s get you back to the cabin, Vin,” he murmured, rolling the young man over and right into his arms, that left wing flopping distressingly before him as he walked. Vin weighed next to nothing, he was surprised to find, until he remembered that birds could only fly because their bones were hollow and light. Without the normal weight of a man Vin’s size, Chris was able to gather Vin’s injured wing around the hunter and put on a sprint that had Job galloping after him toward the cabin.

Chris kicked open the door and put Vin carefully down on the bed, laying him out on his back and stretching his left wing a little to rest the sweep of it on a chair, for lack of any better idea of what to do with it. Of course doing that only showed him that the blood in those feathers wasn’t all from his hand. Chris balled his own hands into fists. Best get to the well to get enough water to do the job he had to do.

“When I find the man who did this to you,” he promised Vin as he caught up Job’s reins and led the horse into the corral for now. “I will make sure he pays with his life. Eventually.”

******

Buck sat quietly outside the saloon, waiting on… anything. Vin wasn’t back yet, but that wasn’t necessarily a worry. The damn tracker’d been known to disappear for days if he got the notion, though it was just as possible he’d happened upon someone who needed help on the trail. And hell, Chris’d be out at his ranch until he ran out of whiskey or got dragged back by Ezra.

Nathan hadn’t sent any of the kids back from the Seminole village to get him and the others, so it looked like that was something he could handle on his own. Nothing was happening in town, nothing was looming...

He groaned in annoyance. None of that explained away the worry in his gut.

“Is there word, Mr. Wilmington?” Ezra asked, sliding out the door of the saloon to sit on the opposite side of the opening. “Or are your… special sensitivities… just putting you on edge?”

Buck snorted at the label, but sobered immediately. “I don’t know.” He blew out a frustrated breath. “Nothing I can put a finger on. Just a feeling.”

Ezra nodded sagely, watching the day roll toward evening around them. “I’m sure Nathan would have sent someone to contact us if he needed help, Buck.” Funny how he didn’t  _ sound _ sure.

Buck sighed again. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said quietly, his tone matching Ezra’s. He rose to his feet. “Still. I think I’ll make a few rounds of the area.” He grinned in embarrassment. “Just in case.”

******

Nathan woke at dinner time, worried but not too surprised to find that Dianday hadn’t stirred at all. The sun was just getting ready to set when he walked into the poor man’s house to find his mama and sister waiting on him.

“Thank you for helping him, Mr. Jackson,” his sister said in slow English. Dianday’s mama said something in Seminole and the sister nodded. “My mother wishes to know why he still doesn’t wake.”

Nathan shook his head. Examining the young man, he found that the healing and doctoring he’d done that morning had held just fine. “Your brother’s in pretty bad shape, ma’am,” he told the younger woman. “I ain’t sure whether his mind’s been hurt or not, but I aim to make the rest of it right as soon as I can.”

Dianday’s throat was still bruised as hell, black and swollen, though at least Nathan had been able to heal it enough this morning that the young man was breathing okay. He laid a hand on the bruising, closing his eyes and recalling the bones and muscles and tissue he’d seen drawn in a book, letting the picture mesh with the flesh and sinew he felt under his hand. 

“It’s gonna be some time, ladies,” he told them, opening his eyes long enough to look at them. “Reckon you all should sleep while you can.”

Neither woman moved, and Nathan just nodded, closing his eyes and getting back to it. He hoped Dianday’s head really was okay, and that the Lord gave him enough power to heal the man’s throat so he could tell his story. After dressing wounds and healing hurts no man should inflict on another, Nathan had a powerful need to learn who was behind this.

******

Chris sighed, sitting back and surveying his handiwork. Vin’s hand wasn’t as bad as it looked at first, thank God, and Chris had cleaned it good and wrapped it against infection. The wound that had delivered the poison that had him twitching and muttering in his feverish state was only a scratch in comparison, and easily taken care of. His left wing was still swollen, still propped on a chair and only three-quarters folded, but at least the bones were all in their right places and the bullet wound had been dressed, the bleeding stopped. It was only the damn twitching and the pale gray skin under that damn sunburn. And the insane snippets of him talking to people who weren’t there about things Chris could wish to God had never happened…

He fingered a large hole in the webbing of Vin’s injured wing, where he’d had to pluck some of the feathers to get at the bullet wound. It was old and scarred and permanent… and just the right size for a chain bolt to go through. Like a God damned ring through a bull’s nose. The perfect way to chain a man without worrying about how to secure the restraints over a wing that big.

The piercing had been torn at some point, right up so the ring would have rubbed up against his bone, and Chris wondered at how much that must’ve hurt.

“I’ll kill you my own self, you son of a bitch,” Vin murmured. “I ain’t gonna let you cut me up, too…”

Chris leaned forward again and laid a hand on Vin’s arm, trying to get through to his friend. The poison left Vin trembling and he was obviously in pain and off his head, but Chris didn't think it was killing him. In fact, he kind of figured that maybe that was the point of the damn stuff. Pain and hell and no hope of dying.

“Relax, Vin, you hear me?” he called after a while, knowing he’d get no response. “Nobody’s gonna get to you. You’re home now.”

He’d thought Vin was deep under. He’d thought the young man was too hurt and too exhausted to move. He’d thought that letting him know he was home, with a friend, would be comforting.

So he couldn’t have been more surprised to find himself on the ground, the flyer’s hands suddenly around his throat where Vin crouched above him.

“I told you I’d kill you if I ever got the chance.”

******

_ God, it was loud.  _

_ Someone was crying. Lot of someones—hell, he figured someone was always crying here. He’d just never heard all of them at the same time before. Whatever Jepson had given him, he could hear  _ everything _. Everywhere.  _

_ “I would have thought at least her heart would have looked different.” It was hard to understand the words, hard to identify the voice. Everything was just loud and punishing and even though he was standing here chained and exhausted and alone in the dark, it was like everyone was right up and shouting in his face. _

_ They must’ve kept cutting her up ‘til she died. The girl with the white hair. God damn it... _

_ “Hell, I still don’t understand why you don’t cut up my Wings.” That had to be Jepson. “Figure there’s something in there to explain what he is.” _

_ “I’ll kill you my own self, you son of a bitch,” Devin whispered, wincing at the words that sounded like rifle shots. “I ain’t gonna let you cut me up, too.” _

_ “No, for now Tanner is much too valuable as a test subject.” Weller? Maybe. Or Samson… “His ability to metabolize our potions? We have no one else here to test on.” _

_ “There’s the Man Himself,” Jepson said, his voice mocking even at such a high, distorted volume. So the other guy wasn’t Samson then. “He’s sure as hell used enough of ‘em. Look how it’s worked for him.” _

_ “Exactly my point. We’ve never had a formula work on Tanner in the long term—his metabolism is fast enough to clear them out, but slow enough for us to get an idea of how they work. He’s the perfect test subject.” _

Suddenly Jepson was in front of him, a hand on his arm. 

“Relax, Vin, you hear me?” the bastard told him, trying to sound comforting and friendly again, using the nickname no one here used. “Nobody’s gonna get you. You’re home now.”

_ No. _

Ignoring the flames of pain that raced over him, Vin snapped his eyes open and slammed Jepson onto his back on the ground, his hands at the man’s throat. Why the idiot had let his guard down so much, Vin didn’t have the thoughts to figure right now, but he was damn sure going to take advantage of the mistake.

“I told you I’d kill you if I ever got the chance,” he growled. 

“Vin, calm down.”

Chris’s voice was there—not loud or shrill or painful. Soothing. “Vin?”

Vin looked down at the man whose throat he was preparing to crush. Dark brown skin gave way to pale, wiry black hair gave way to blond. The cave around him was still the cave, the chains still burned, his veins still sang with Weller’s latest brew, but beyond it all was warmth and safety and a cabin he knew well.

“Chris?” he asked, risking everything to loosen his grip. A little. “You really here?”

“Yeah, Vin,” Chris replied, voice rough and pinched like his throat. He  _ looked  _ like Chris. “Somebody shot you.”

“Weller,” Vin whispered, his strength starting to fail him. Two worlds were colliding in his eyes and he squinted, hoping to see past Tascosa and into… wherever Chris was. His hands lost their hold altogether. “Fucking potions.”

Chris frowned in a cold way and Vin hoped Weller lived long enough to see that look of vengeance. “He the one who shot you?”

Did he? Vin tried to think. He really did. But damn, he was tired.

“Whoa, easy,” Chris murmured, strong hands holding Vin up as he started to swoon. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

Vin nodded, barely able to help as Chris hauled him to his feet and moved him. His wing. Jesus, his wing hurt. “Get the damn chains off, will you?” he asked, as he was settled on a bed. “Left one tore. Fucking hurts.”

Chris gave him a weird look for a second, and the cabin/cave around them flickered. Chris was Jepson again, then Chris again, back and forth in a way like to make Vin puke. He tensed. Shit. Another hallucination? Was that all Chris was? Hell, was that all Four Corners had ever been?

“The chains are gone, Vin,” Chris said after a minute, something about the statement letting Vin know that the old man was telling him the brutal truth so that he’d know it for what it was. He stayed Chris, too, not fading into Jepson even a little. That was something, anyway. “Whatever they gave you, you’re imagining things. Look for yourself,” he added, lifting that left wing and causing Vin to cry out in pain. He saw it, all right. Bloody and bandaged though part of his wing was, the piercing was old and healed.

He’d been shot, right? 

“Eli Joe,” he whispered. He closed his eyes as the exhaustion overwhelmed him. “Come to fucking take me home.”

Chris’s hand on his shoulder was nothing like Jepson. “No one’s taking you anywhere,” he promised.

Was a hell of a thing, but Vin believed him.

******

It was dusk before Eli Joe left his room. He’d rested and cleaned up and while his head still ached, he felt better. Good enough to start hunting.

The town had two saloons, one rowdy and one rowdier. Eli headed for the rowdier one first. Men spoke more freely when they drank more than they should, and this seemed like the place to do just that. 

Digger Dan’s, it was called, and it was held together by spit and shit as far as he could tell. He worked his way inside and stood at the bar, where he was ignored by the bartender for a full fifteen minutes. Not that he cared, of course, but it was the principle of the thing.

The place was a bust, he could see after a while. The crowd was mostly cowboys, working a drive from Santa Mira up to Colorado. Not many locals, and the few that looked it were mostly griping about the aforementioned cowboys.

“Damn fancy pants,” a cowboy was saying. Drunk as a skunk and angry. “I swear he cheats worse than… worse than anyone.” Eli found him in the boisterous crowd and the man was about what he’d expected: straggly, sloppy, and stupid. Stupid put his whiskey to his lips. “Gonna go back there and show him a thing or two.” He knocked his bottle over as he raised his hands and balled them into fists. “ _ These _ , I’m gonna show him.”

“Yeah, he ain’t nothing,” the man’s friend agreed, draining his own drink and righting his partner’s bottle, not seeming to notice the alcohol spilled on the table and floor. “I say we go on over and call him out. Damn gambler.”

They both rose, stumbling and moving to draw their guns already as they pushed their way through the crowd.

One of the men by the doors—one Eli had pegged as a local—snorted. “Yeah, try it,” he said mockingly. “If he doesn’t shoot you, damn sure Larabee will.” He shook his head. “Your funeral.”

Eli Joe perked up at the name, but it wasn’t like there was only one Larabee in the world, right? Was probably a coincidence.

“Larabee?” the cowboy said, too drunk to be prudent. “Ain’t no trouble to me. Heard he wasn’t even in town.”

“He’s not,” a tall man with a mustache said as he dropped a hand on the cowboy’s shoulder. He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, and the locals gave him room immediately. “But I am. Reckon you and me ought to take a walk, yeah?”

“Who the hell’re you?” the cowboy growled, unholstering his gun and waving it around randomly.

The tall man grinned like a hungry bear. “Well right this minute, I’m a man giving you some friendly advice,” he said. His hand gripped a little tighter, and Eli Joe smirked to see the drunkard start to squirm in pain. “You don’t give me the gun and follow along, I figure to get a whole lot less friendly.”

The cowboy looked up, suddenly realizing that the room—at least the room within striking distance of the blithe mustached man—had suddenly become distressingly empty. With a scared swallow, he handed over his gun, his partner doing the same.

“Now,” the man in charge said, leading them both out the door so the cacophony in the saloon could ramp back up. “What’s say we have this discussion somewhere else, eh?”

Eli watched the three men head for the jail, wondering how the sheriff or deputy or whoever he was had managed to cotton to the troublemakers so quickly.

“You want something, mister?” the bartender finally asked, but not like he gave a crap whether Eli answered or not.

“No,” Eli said, looking across the street from the jail to the cleaner, quieter saloon. Where a fancy pants cheater might be plying his trade. Gamblers heard everything. Gamblers who were known by the locals—defended by the locals, after a fashion—knew more than most. “No, I think I got all I need here, thanks.”

He made his way out and moseyed down the boardwalk to the other saloon. The Standish Tavern, a faded sign declared it. It was just as full, it seemed, but more of the people knew each other. A beautiful Mexican girl was tending the place, and she nodded to him to let him know she’d seen him as he sat at the bar. Took her a minute to get to him, so he looked around the place, hunting for the gambler.

Wasn’t hard to find. Dressed in a plum-colored coat and natty silk shirt, his voice all honeyed Southern tones as he grinned disarmingly at the Easterners at his table, he did look like a cheater. Also looked like a man a drunken cowboy could have taken down with ease, though, and since the locals didn’t seem to think that likely, maybe looks were deceiving.

“Can I help you, sir?” the Mexican beauty asked sweetly, drawing his attention. 

“Do you have food?” he asked in flawless Spanish. “Good Mexican food. I’ve been away from Tijuana for a long time, and I miss it something fierce.”

She smiled. “I have burritos and beans and rice, senor,” she replied in Spanish as well, her accent putting her just south of the border and not far from here.

“Perfecto,” he told her with a smile. “Gracias.”

“De nada.”

She sashayed away and Eli Joe watched the gambler until she returned with his food. “Is he as good as he looks?” he asked her in English.

A shuttered, wary look came into her eyes, so slight most people wouldn’t have noticed. Whoever this gambler was, he’d somehow garnered a hell of a lot of loyalty. “Si,” she replied. “Senor Standish is not a man to sit down with idly.”

“Standish?” he asked, surprised. Though it explained a lot. “He own the place?”

“No, senor,” she replied, again that wariness in her eyes. “Do you need anything else?” She was clearly willing to say no more. “A drink perhaps?” 

“No, darling, I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just thinking about a game. Always reckoned myself to be quite the poker player myself.” His voice had just enough false bravado to put her slightly at ease. Just another dumb vaquero looking to lose his money by taking on a bigger fish. “Too bad he don’t own the place. I could’ve won it off him.”

“Enjoy your meal, sir,” she replied, giving him a sly grin. “I believe I’ll ask you to pay  _ before  _ you gamble.”

Eli chuckled and tossed his money on the bar as he dug into his meal. He hummed appreciatively. “Delicioso. Gracias.”

She nodded and pocketed his money before she moved on, and Eli lingered over his meal, eyes always watching. The tall mustached man came in after a while, flirting with the bartender who had clearly decided to choose not to be interested. She called him Buck and he called her Inez and they would probably be good together if they weren’t working hard not to be together at all. Some story there, he was sure. 

Hell, everyone had a story. Was kind of the point. All you had to do was find out what it was and you could work on using it to your own advantage.

“Ezra, Ezra, Ezra,” Buck drawled pleasantly as he approached the gambler, who had cleaned out the last of the businessmen. It wasn’t the dangerous drawl the lawman had used on the cowboys. These men were friends. “Why you gotta stir up trouble like that?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Wilmington,” the southerner said, his use of the man’s last name familiar and comradely. 

“Had to jail me a cowboy who was just certain you were cheating him.”

Ezra snorted as the sheriff shared a smile with him. “If you believe I need to cheat to beat the likes of those fools, you need to play with me far more often.” He shuffled his cards with beautiful ease. “I’ll even let you deal.”

“Hell, I like my money in my own pocket, Ezra, I ain’t stupid.”

“Some would argue…” Ezra began, only to peter off with a sigh and rolled eyes as a working girl sidled up behind Buck and wrapped her arms around him.

“Hey, Bucky,” she all but purred. Dressed in a slightly tattered red and lace dress, she was pretty, but aging, her hair that brown that wasn’t all nature and God.

Buck turned in her arms and gathered her up. “Sweet Loretta!” he greeted her. He planted a kiss on her lips that said he was unlikely to pay attention to anything but her for a while. “I been waiting for you all evening.”

Loretta ran a hand down his chest. “Have you, now?” she asked. “Well, Buck, you knew where to look.”

Buck grinned. “And I know just where to go, too,” he said, leading her away without a backward glance. Ezra Standish sighed and shook his head fondly and played with his cards.

Perfect opening.

“Mister Standish?” Eli asked timidly, standing before him like a child before his headmaster. “That pretty bartender said maybe you might be interested in a game?”

Ezra looked him up and down and surprisingly  _ didn’t _ look toward the bar, signifying a deep trust in Inez and her actions. “I am afraid it’s not a night for penny-ante, my friend,” he said dismissively.

“Oh, it ain’t pennies,” Eli assured him eagerly, pulling out his wallet and flashing the money there. “I warn you though, I beat a gambler over in Texas. Took him for nearly eighty dollars.”

The shine of greed in the gambler’s eyes was brighter than the gold in his smile. “Well then, my friend,” he said, spreading his hands wide and welcoming. “I believe the table is ours.” He took his cards and shuffled. “Can I interest you in a game?”

******

One day, when Vin and Josiah were sitting out in the shade by the church, the preacher had said something about there being two worlds: the world you saw and the world you felt. Vin wasn’t sure he believed that, but he was starting to believe that Earth and Hell were definitely one place. At least in his mind.

“Need you to drink this, Vin,” Chris told him. He was hoping Chris was real. Where Chris was, the darkness was lit with a warm lantern light. 

_ “Needles are just easier now,” Jepson was saying at the same time, his voice loud even though he wasn’t in the dark cave that dripped with moisture and echoed nothing but Vin’s breaths. “Damn bird won’t drink anything I give him. Gotta wait until he’s down and make him swallow then.” _

“Ain’t drinking it,” Vin said, though he wasn’t quite sure who he was talking to. He couldn’t take a chance. They’d had a shapeshifter once—Vin never did know if it was a man or a woman or if shapeshifters didn’t have no parts of their own. They’d broken that one good, he’d heard. Turned it evil. Could be it weren’t Chris at all in the lamplight. “Ain’t drinking none of your poison.”

_ “Don’t worry, though. Won’t kill you.”  _

“God damn, Eli,” he grated. “Don’t you never shut up?”

“Vin, look at me.” The spectre of Chris was talking again, his eyes worried and angry—same as they were that first day they met, when he’d helped Vin save Nathan. Where the hell  _ was _ Nathan, anyway? He’d be damn useful right about now.

_ “Reckon if he’s hurt bad enough, we can get the healer in there,” Jepson said. Vin didn’t think the saidst was talking about him. He gloried in Vin’s hurts. “Don’t want him dying before we’re done.” _

No. He wouldn’t wish this place on Nathan.

“VIN!”

Chris’s voice was sharp and painful and hands were holding Vin’s cheeks, forcing his gaze forward. Chris was there before him in the nothing of the cave.

“Vin, you need to listen to me. Drink, all right.” The hands disappeared and Vin was propped up, a cool arm cradling his right wing behind his back. Left one  _ still _ hurt like stink. “You been out in the desert for too long and the poison isn’t helping. It’s only water and you need it.”

Vin blinked, the cave receding, though he could still hear everything everyone said everywhere in the complex. But he could see Chris’s cabin. He was  _ in _ Chris’s cabin.

Right?

“Please, Vin.”

Chris was scared. That  _ had _ to be real, because damned if Vin’d ever imagined a world where Chris Larabee was scared of anything. Except for almost losing Buck that one time.

“Yeah,” he whispered, praying he wasn’t signing his own death warrant. “Yeah, okay.” The liquid that sloshed into his mouth was water, all right, soft and cool from the well he and Chris had managed to dig in a single day, thanks to Chris’s strength and his own stubborn. It sat on his hard, dried out tongue, trying to soak in. He swallowed, but it didn’t take and coughing hurt like hell. He could feel the tears leaking from closed eyelids, but he didn’t figure Chris would begrudge him that.

“Easy, Vin. Jesus.” Chris was holding him now, as he tried to suck in air. God, it hurt! “Just give it a second and breathe.”

Took a hell of a lot more than a second, but he did finally get the hang of it again. He let himself float in Chris’s arms for a minute, reveling in something real.

_ “The fool thinks he’s a hero,” someone was saying. Damned if Vin could tell who it was or who they were talking about—definitely not him. “Worse than that, he thinks he’s  _ normal _. He needs to learn what his place is.” Jepson had said that about him once, hadn’t he? “Get me Fowler. I’ll strip his precious family away and see where that leaves him.”  _

_ Family. Hell, the Comanche had nearly  _ been _ family. Not like Mammedaty and the Kiowa, of course, but… Eli Joe had killed ‘em anyway. And that had left Devin  _ here.

“Ready to try again?” Chris asked gently. 

“No,” Vin whispered. He wasn’t ready to try any of it again. Sure as hell not losing people he cared about. Eli Joe was going to come looking, if he hadn’t killed him in the desert. And since he couldn’t be sure of what was real and what wasn’t, he had to assume the bastard would be back. He wasn’t letting anyone else be killed because of him and he damn well wasn’t going back into that cave.

So he opened his damn mouth and let the water in, tried to keep it going down the right hole. He just had to gain back his strength, his wits.

_ “Hell, Wings, you ain’t got the wits God gave a groundhog,” Jepson reminded him.  _

Maybe not, but he was going to be ready when they came for him, fucking potion in his veins or not.

********

Nathan often wondered why God had gone and done a fool thing like give a slave, of all people, the power to heal other men’s hurts. His daddy had reckoned maybe it was payment for birthing him into such dire conditions, but Nathan never believed that. He just figured God had seen a need and made him to fill it.

Times like this, he was only too glad to pay the price of it.

Dianday blinked in confusion, looking up at the ceiling while his sister called his name. Nathan moved out of the way, watching carefully as the brave’s neck, now lightly bruised and moving properly, bobbled as he swallowed.

His sister said something to him in Seminole and he smiled. She directed him toward Nathan, and he reached out a hand in thanks. Nathan clasped it.

“Thank you, Nathan Jackson,” Dianday said, his voice raspy and sore, but there and healing.

“I’m just glad I got here,” Nathan replied. “You remember what happened?”

It was clear he didn’t, and Nathan sighed. The patrols hadn’t turned up a thing, but that didn’t calm the worry in his head that whatever had happened to Dianday, it wasn’t over. The young Indian man closed his eyes, still exhausted from his injuries.

“I’ll leave you now,” Nathan said quietly, nodding to Dianday’s sister and gesturing to his mama, who lay curled on the floor at the foot of his bed. “I’ll be back to check on you in the morning. You need rest more than anything,” he assured him.

He was halfway out the door and into the black of night when Dianday spoke. A single phrase in that language Nathan barely understood a word of. But he understood that.

“Soaring Soul.” The Seminoles’ name for Vin.

He was back at Dianday’s side in an instant. “What about Vin?” he asked urgently.

“The white man,” Dianday whispered in English. “He visited the grave.” He swallowed, whining at the pain. “He said he knew him. What he is.”

Weren’t many white men who knew about Vin’s wings. And none of the good ones would do what this man had done to Dianday. “What did he look like?”

Dianday sighed. “Skinny. Dark hair…” he was already drifting again. “Evil eyes….”

Nathan cursed.

“I gotta get back to Four Corners.”

*******

Ezra had a feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn’t a particularly foreign feeling—he was known for finding trouble, in fact. But this time, he figured trouble had found him.

“In for five,” he announced easily, watching the man across the table. He was tall and skinny, his dark hair long and lank and unwashed. Probably half Mexican, from his coloring. None of that was remarkable. It was his eyes that gave him away. 

When they had started this game, nearly two hours ago, the man who had given the name of Joe had been wide-eyed and naive. But slowly, subtly, Ezra had begun to realize that he was after something. His eyes got harder and harder the longer they played. So Ezra kept him playing, letting him win just enough to keep him on the hook so he could find out what the soul behind those hard eyes wanted.

“You been here a while, seems like,” Joe said finally, an organic continuation of their on-again-off-again discussion. “Bartender seems to know you pretty well.”

Ezra grinned. “I have had the misfortune to be mired here for quite some time, yes,” he allowed good-naturedly.

“You know, I got a friend who was travelling this way months ago,” Joe mused, matching Ezra’s bet and raising. He tossed two cards in and Ezra dealt him a four and a six to give him a straight that would beat his own hand. “At least he told me he was headed out this way.”

“Alas, not everyone who plans to go west makes it quite as far as they plan,” Ezra returned, meeting the man’s bet. “I stand.”

Joe nodded, surveying his cards. “I ain’t heard from him for a long while now,” he said. “Used to write me regular like, but it’s been more than half a year.”

Ezra sighed, as if bored by the discussion. “I expect people simply get engrossed and lose track.” He tapped the table to show his impatience, though it had nothing to do with the game. “I believe it’s time to show your cards, sir?”

“Oh, yeah!” the man said, smiling as he fanned out his straight. “Let’s see you beat that.”

Ezra displayed his two pair sadly. “I believe the pot is yours,” he bemoaned. A crafty look came into his eyes as the man fidgeted like a child asked to go on to bed. “Unless of course you’re interested in continuing our little back and forth?”

Joe grinned and dropped a dollar in the pot. “Always.” He watched as Ezra shuffled and dealt. “Funny you should talk about him losing track,” the man said. “Vin was always a hell of a tracker.”

The cards kept moving and Ezra’s face betrayed nothing. He took a cursory glance at his cards and ignored the statement.  _ Damn it. _ He didn’t even know where Vin had gone off to. Though perhaps that wasn’t the worst thing in this particular situation. This man didn’t know Vin nearly as well as he claimed to. Tanner couldn’t have written a letter to anyone to save his life.

The room was full and busy, and Ezra was able to easily scan it as they continued to play. JD and Josiah were nowhere to be found, unfortunately. And Buck was likely far too wrapped up in Miss Loretta—quite literally probably—to notice that something was amiss.

Why on earth did situations like this always fall to him?

“There was a man who worked at the general store when I arrived named Vin,” he offered lightly. “I think. Might have been Ben.”

“Skinny?” the man asked, doing a good job of not seeming too eager about it. “Light brown hair—shaggy as all hell last I saw him.”

Ezra shrugged. “He worked at the local store,” he sniffed disdainfully. “I’m afraid I neglected to look too closely.” He grinned to show his gold tooth. “I don’t recall him losing any money to me at any rate,” he said.

Joe smiled fondly, the image unnervingly like a cat about to devour a mouse. “Hell, that might’ve been him. Vin’s never been one for gambling.”

Which wasn’t entirely untrue, Ezra mused. Tanner did play for fun, but he had no interest in high stakes. Ezra studied the man without seeming to. “I don’t recall him being here long, though,” he said, watching the man blink and not quite sure what it meant. “If it was your friend, I’m afraid he’s long gone from here.”

Joe shrugged, and they played on.

**********

Josiah strode into the saloon with no other thought in his head but to get a drink—and stopped cold at the blank, artificial look on Ezra’s face. The gambler was smiling blithely, his poker face so firmly in place that it was painful to look at. His single opponent had his back to the door, and Ezra looked over his head seemingly at random, his eyes locking on Josiah’s.

Something was wrong.

He kept his eyes on Ezra, making sure he himself could be easily seen, and watched. Ezra didn’t look at him again, though, not directly. He simply let his gaze meander as he and his companion played on. So Josiah looked around himself, trying to find anything else that might be out of place.

The saloon was busier than usual, owing to the cattle drive in town. Most of the cowboys had settled in at Digger Dan’s, thankfully, but there were a few here as well. Loud and annoying and drunk.

“I’d’ve figured,” one them said, waving his hands expansively at the table on the other side of Ezra’s, “that with Chris Larabee in this town, it’d… you know… be… rougher.”

“Reckon that’s why he’s here,” another cowboy answered, equally in his cups. Ezra was listening, Josiah could tell. And so was his companion. “He and all them rega—reggie—his posse. He’s got the whole town all under control.” He burped loudly. “I figure.”

“Mr. Sanchez,” Ezra said quietly, his voice dripping with disdain. “If you are going to continue to sit there in judgement, I shall have to find the sheriff and have you removed for harassment.”

Josiah played his part, unsure of the script, but feeling the certainty that he needed to play along. “There’s no crime in sitting in a saloon, Standish,” he lobbed back, a little dark.

Ezra smiled coldly. “There’s no crime in plying my trade, but you seem to find fault with it at every turn.” His companion looked at Ezra curiously and Ezra explained, tossing a hand out to point at Josiah briefly before shuffling for the next hand. “Josiah Sanchez,” he introduced, again that anger and dislike thick in his tone. “Four Corners’ resident preacher and sometime drunkard. A man who gives his opinion whether asked for or not.” 

That stung, but from the look in Ezra’s eyes, it was meant to convey something.

“‘What will it profit a man if he gains the world and loses his soul,’ Brother Ezra?” he pronounced.

Ezra snorted, but his contemptuous grin held approval. “Perhaps you should go and preach to the ladies of the night—or prosthelytize to the Indians,” he suggested meanly. “I’m quite certain they’d have no more time for you or your words than I do, but at least you would be well out of town.” He took a sip of his whiskey and snorted in derision. “On the wings of God’s faith, right, preacher?”

“God asks us to pray for the wicked,” Josiah said seriously, skimming Ezra’s partner with a pitying look and then turning the same on Ezra himself. The man who shared his table was thin and dark and worrying—and watching them without watching. In the background, the drunk cowboys went on. “Shall I pray for you and your companion?”

“Did you hear they got them one of those white Indians here?” one of them said. If Josiah hadn’t been looking directly into Ezra’s eyes, he’d never have seen the flinch. “Can’t imagine what’d turn a man to throw in with those heathens.”

Damn it.  _ Wings of God’s faith. _ This was about Vin, then. 

“I’m certain God has little use for me,” Ezra said, the hard edge to his voice all for the situation, not the words out of his mouth. He smiled at his companion and drank a bit more. “In any case,  _ I _ have little use for  _ him _ .”

Josiah hid his own wince as one of the local drunkards chimed in to the discussion behind them.

“Best watch it,” he said, his words slurring and overly loud. “He’s one of them regular-a-tors you were talking about.” He drained his beer. “Rough you up and go all Comanche on you—bet Larabee wouldn’t even stop him, seeing as they’re pals and all.”

Josiah sighed, trying to convey his understanding to Ezra. Sheriff, ladies of the night, Indians… He’d round up the troops and leave Ezra to keep track of his companion, for now. 

“I shall pray for you anyway, Brother,” he said sadly. “Pray and wait for the time when you come to your senses.” He didn’t know what sign Ezra would give, but he would make sure he and the others were ready for it.

As he was walking away, he heard Ezra bark with laughter. “Not damn likely, Preacher. Now, Joe, where were we?”

Josiah headed for the jail first. JD was sitting at the desk, his feet on the edge of it while he read a dime store novel. He sat up at the look on Josiah’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“Damned if I know,” Josiah said truthfully, looking at the two cowboys snoring loudly in the cells. “What are they in for?” 

“Being drunk,” JD said bluntly. “Oh and threatening to beat up Ezra.”

Josiah smirked. “I didn’t know that was a jailable offense,” he commented. “Guess I’ll be more careful with what I say in the future.” The future abruptly sobered him. “Ezra’s got someone in the saloon who’s looking for Vin. He’s worried.” 

Josiah was, too. The name Joe was ringing a bell in the back of his head, alongside the memory of sitting with Vin in the cool of the evening, a pot of coffee and a plate of biscuits between them as they talked about all sorts of things. They did it often enough to be comfortable, but that night…

The talk had been warm and easy, and Josiah had seen the kid that Vin might once have been. Right up to the end, when Josiah had asked about the Comanche Vin had lived with when he was coming of age. Where they were, if he ever visited. Vin’s face had turned hard, matured in an instant into the man Josiah saw in battle. Even more, that face had flashed with the eyes of the killer that was inside them all. 

“He killed them,” Vin had said, his voice low and gritty.  “To get at me, he killed them all. I used to dream of paying him back for that. Slowly. Damn the son of a bitch.”  Then he’d said a name—a name that sounded like Joe, in fact.

“Heck,” JD swore, standing up. “Let’s get over there and get him, then.”

Josiah put out a hand to catch the boy before he did something rash. “Ezra’s got him for now. I expect he’s trying to find out more about it. He wants us to rally the troops.”

JD nodded and thought a minute. “Buck’s probably with Loretta. Or Sophie.” He sighed. “Or Jolene.”

“Just find him and get over to the saloon—I’m headed to the Seminole village to get Nathan.”

“What about Chris?” JD asked. “And Vin, for that matter.”

“Chris is probably safe at his shack,” Josiah said firmly, though the worry in Ezra’s eyes when that cowboy had started talking about their fearless leader had him thinking. “And if Vin knows the man’s looking for him, might be he’s there as well.”

He hoped so, anyway. If this was the man who’d killed Vin’s family, there would be hell to pay. Josiah just wasn’t sure yet of the cost.  

*******

Vin didn’t know a damn thing, right then. The lucid moments he’d had earlier had given way to fever dreams and he’d lost that certainty of where he was and what he had to do.

The cold dark of the cave and the warm dark of Chris’s cabin, coming to him together in a jumble as they did, just hurt. But at least his body didn’t quite as much anymore. 

A weight settled on the cot he was lying on while hanging chained from the rocks. It had been like that all night, two places, two sensations, two lives, and he just wanted it to  _ stop _ . Weller’s potions always wore off eventually. Unless he’d made this one stronger.

“How you doing, Tanner?” Chris asked, putting a hand to his forehead. Was cool and relaxing and Vin closed his eyes against his double vision and just let it soothe him.

“Been better,” he admitted. 

Chris chuckled. “Yeah, I’ll bet.” He was quiet a long moment and took his hand away. Vin heard water sloshing into a cup. “You need more water.”

“Hell, Larabee, I’m like to float away now!” he griped. But like he’d been doing since he found his friend, he went ahead and did it anyway. Felt good going down.

“You think you can remember what happened now?” Chris asked carefully. “You seem a little more present than you were.”

Vin opened his eyes hopefully. Nope. Still in two places at once. “A little,” he allowed. He struggled to move, gasping at the pain in his left wing. “You want to help me get up?”

Chris shook his head. “Not sure that’s the best idea,” he counseled.

“I wasn’t lying about floating away,” Vin replied. “So unless you want to build a boat…?”

A firm hand grasped his left one while another slid under his right wing, levering him up. His right hand was numb and bandaged and—

“Holy fuck,” he gritted in pain as Chris let go of his hand to catch his left wing before it slid off the chair. “God damn, I’m gonna kill him this time.”

“Eli Joe?” Chris asked.

How the hell did Chris know about  _ him _ being here?

“You ain’t been real with it, but you talk a lot more when you’re poisoned,” Chris explained with a smile.

Well, hell. Vin wondered what else he’d blabbed. Tascosa weren’t nothing anyone needed to know about. “I… hit him,” he said slowly, letting Chris take most of his weight as he tried to stand. He really did need to do some business. Once upright, though, he couldn’t quite stay there. Kept listing to the side. “I remember his head splitting in half, but…”

Chris snorted and carefully draped Vin’s left wing over his own shoulder so Vin didn’t have to try to keep it up. “Probably didn’t happen.”

“Outhouse,” Vin said dismissively—and kind of urgently, too. The bastard chuckled and helped him along out the back door, and Vin was glad to find the cave was fading more and more out here. By the time they were at the door of the little shit shack, he could see clear moonlight above him, framed by stars instead of rock walls.

“Think I can do this my own self,” he growled, when Chris tried to open the door for him. His left wing stuck out the opening, but he still managed a little dignity while he took a piss. He closed his trousers back up and let Chris help him toward the cabin. A horse whinnied in the barn.

“Damn,” he murmured. “Must’ve scared Peso half to death. I reckon he’s still running.”

Chris shook his head as they slipped back into the cabin, still using Vin’s wing as a cloak so it wouldn’t bang the doorframe coming in. Already hurt like a son of a bitch. He didn’t need any more.

“He came here,” Chris told him as he settled back onto the bed. Smart damn horse, that one. “I was out trying to find you when you found me.”

Vin nodded, though he didn’t really know what Chris meant. The cave was still there while he was inside, but he didn’t think Chris’d let him sleep out under the sky right now.

_ “You ain’t seeing the light of day again, unless it’s with a set of jesses on your foot to keep you in place.”  _

“I ain’t no fucking bird, Jepson,” he growled.

“Vin, stay with me here.” 

Vin blinked, and there was Chris. Hell. “I ain’t sure  _ here _ is real,” he admitted, surprised as the words came out of his mouth.

Chris nodded, like he knew exactly what Vin was talking about. “Even if it isn’t, is  _ there _ any better?” he asked reasonably.

Vin grinned and closed his eyes. “I reckon not.” Chris was right. To hell with the cave. Even if this was all in his mind, at least it was a better place to be than chained six ways and put through hell.

“What happened, Vin?”

He sighed, trying to ignore how much his wing hurt. “Eli Joe,” he said simply. “I don’t know how he caught up to me. Said he visited my grave.” His eyes popped open. “Shit, Chris, he said he killed someone. At the village, probably.” Another mark on his soul, damn it.

“Wasn’t your fault if he did,” Chris told him. 

“Yes it was,” he countered. “Made a damn fool mistake ever staying here.” He struggled to sit up again, the hurt in his bones more a penance now. “So  _ stupid _ .”

“Ain’t stupid to get tired of running.”

Vin looked into Chris’s face and saw only earnest understanding. “Damn it, Chris, he’s killed to get to me before. He’ll do it again, and I won’t see one of you die for me.”

Chris smirked. “Wasn’t planning on dying, Tanner.”

“Nobody plans on it,” Vin replied, his heart cold. “Just God damned happens that way.”

*********

Josiah was headed out of town when the first shot was fired.

He turned Prophet from his course and ran him quickly back toward the saloon, where a fight was spilling out onto the boardwalk. Cowboys and townspeople alike were hip deep in the brawl, and Josiah cursed to see Buck and JD in the fray. As he dismounted and waded through the melee into the saloon, he didn’t see Ezra or his poker companion, and that worried him.

“What the hell happened!?” he called over the sounds of fist hitting flesh.

Buck brought a man down as the idiot came at him with a knife. “Damn cowboys pissed off one of the locals,” he shouted back. “Was only a matter of time.”

“Bad time for it to happen,” Josiah lobbed back, scanning the room. The back door was open, and he took a chance on instinct. “I’m going to see if I can find Ezra and his buddy!”

“I’ll see if we can’t wrap this up and head after you,” Buck said, waving him out the back. Josiah heard a gun fire twice as he exited the building, Buck’s irate, “Now how about you all  _ shut the hell up _ and stop fighting!?” chasing him into the darkness.

He couldn’t figure where to go at first, eyes still nightblind from the saloon lights and ears equally dazzled. It only took a moment to focus, though, and he heard the sounds of a scuffle in the darkness beyond the buildings.

“Wouldn’t’ve thought a dandy like you was such a scrapper,” came a voice in the night, followed by a cry of pain that sounded like Ezra. “Ha! You bleed just like I thought you would, though.”

Josiah pulled his gun and cocked it, unheard above the grunt of surprise beyond him, as Ezra obviously retaliated. 

The shadows of two men were suddenly before him, and Josiah moved closer before announcing himself.

“You’d best stand down,” he counseled, sounding like God himself.

The moon’s light was finally allowing him to see, and he glimpsed a lopsided grin and the flash of steel. 

“Like hell, preacher.”

The world exploded as Ezra called his name.

******

“Josiah!” 

Damn it!

Ezra slammed a fist into the back of Joe’s knee, felling him quickly, and he tried to grab the gun. He couldn’t tell how badly Josiah was hurt—he didn’t know how badly he’d been cut himself just moments ago—but he knew he had to end this quickly. 

Joe had about the same idea, clearly. 

“I’d love to take the time to do this properly,” Joe said, landing his own blow to Ezra’s already aching ribs and rolling over him so he was looming above Ezra in the night, gun in hand and pointed at his head. “But I really do have someplace to be.”

That place being Chris’s cabin. God, Ezra knew he shouldn’t have let the bastard step away from the table. Joe had gotten up to get a drink, spoken quietly to one of the local gadflies at the bar, and suddenly, the room had erupted into chaos. 

Ezra wished he hadn’t lost his derringer in the fight. He could have simply put a bullet between the man’s eyes and had done with it. Now  _ he _ was the one looking down a barrel.

Hell of a way to die.

The shot never came, and Joe cursed loud in the night as his gun went flying of its own accord. Ezra barely had a chance to smile at JD’s impeccable timing before Joe slammed a fist into the side of his head. The blow left him in a white nothing for some period of time, and when the buzzing world returned, Nathan was looking down at him in the dim light that still managed to hurt his head.

“Easy now,” Nathan told him. “He cracked you pretty good.”

Ezra nodded, trying to sit up and growling at Nathan when he tried to stop him. “Josiah—”

“He’s here,” Nathan affirmed, gesturing to JD, crouching over Josiah’s form. “Shot ain’t a bad one. I’ll get it bandaged in a minute here. Just wanted to make sure you were still with us.”

“That man,” Ezra explained, getting to his feet and ignoring the way the world dipped and swirled around him. “He’s headed for Chris’s cabin. He’s looking for—”

“Vin,” Nathan finished for him, standing beside him now and holding him lightly to make sure he was steady on his feet. “He’s the one who almost killed Dianday. He knows what Vin is.”

Ezra cursed under his breath at the news and the sight of Josiah, silent in the dirt. “JD and Buck and I’ll head out,” he said, trying not to  _ pass _ out as he walked over to where Joe had kicked his Remington out of his hand. He had no idea where his Colt and Derringer were, so the one gun would have to do. “Can you tend to Josiah and follow?”

He could see Nathan gearing up to argue, but the words died before they were said as the black man obviously realized how few options they currently had. “Help me get Josiah into the saloon,” he said instead, though he was clearly talking to JD and not to Ezra. Which was probably wise, as Ezra was having a time helping  _ himself _ to the saloon.

“Thank you for your intervention, Mr. Dunne,” he said quietly, as he stumbled along beside him. Josiah’s bulk would have swallowed the young man, but for Nathan’s towering presence.

“Was afraid I was gonna be too late,” JD confessed. “As it was, I couldn’t get a clear shot in the dark without risking hitting you instead.”

Buck met them halfway to the back entrance and took his share of Josiah’s bulk from JD, who finally turned to look at Ezra fully. 

“Man, Ezra!” JD exclaimed, as Ezra winced in the light of the saloon. “He got you good.”

Ezra looked down at his arm to see a rent in his coat and shirt that went from his elbow all the way to the cuff, the score down his flesh was messy, but he could see it wasn’t serious.

Something flashed on the ground by the saloon, and Ezra watched fuzzily as his own Colt floated into the young sheriff’s waiting hand, his magnetic personality proving useful once again. “I figure we’ll need all the firepower we can get,” JD said cheekily as he held it out. 

Ezra holstered his second gun gratefully, feeling less unclothed. “Joe must have convinced Mr. Starling to start the brawl to cover his getaway,” he said quietly, wishing the world weren’t quite so loud at the moment. He stumbled toward the back door, worried by the way Josiah had hung so limply between his carriers.

JD nodded, walking beside him as if ready to catch him should he fall. “Starling said he told him one of the cowboys had called him a thieving bastard—idiot was too drunk to care that he hadn’t even seen the guy before. He also asked where Chris lived and whether he and Vin were close.”

“Time to go,” Buck said sharply, glancing at where Josiah sat, awake now and clearly hurting, while Nathan crouched next to him. “You two going to be all right?”

“We’ll be right along,” Josiah assured them all, voice rough with pain and anger. He pegged each of them with an earnest look. “Be careful.”

Buck snorted as the three of them headed for their horses. “Hell, preacher, when have we ever done  _ that _ ?”

_ No time in recent memory, _ Ezra thought bitterly. He should have known better than to let that man play him like that.

He didn’t know if Vin was at the cabin, or what was really going on. All he knew was that Joe was a dangerous man and he was headed for Chris. He just hoped the rest of them got to the cabin in time to stop whatever was going to happen. 

******

Eli Joe cursed the dark and his horse’s nerves and the bullet that had scored his arm and hurt like hellfire. Shit, he was going to take this out of Tanner’s hide.

He didn’t hear anyone following him, so after a long spell of galloping down the well-worn track toward where this cabin was supposed to be, he pulled into the woods and stopped, letting his horse have a minute while he rummaged in his pack.

Chris Larabee. Hell. Who would’ve thought little old Devin Tanner would wind up pals with the likes of him? Eli came up with the meditation stone he was looking for and eyed it with disgust. God, he hated these damn things. But he couldn’t go into a fight he might not win without letting the folks back home know the news.

Rollins had explained the stones to him once, in depth, but Eli couldn’t have cared less about the ins and outs of astral travel. He just knew it was faster and safer than a telegraph and he had damn near no time at all to talk.

The stone glowed a gentle blue as he focused on it and he was suddenly in the main hall at Tascosa. Things were quiet, owing to the late hour, but he could see that some of the experiments were still going on. Rollins turned to him in surprise, keyed to the stone by the matching one he carried at all times.

“What do you want?” he asked harshly. “I’m busy.” But there was an edge of interest to his voice. He knew Eli hated communicating this way.

“I found Tanner,” he said shortly. And then he smiled, the grin promising all kinds of chaos. “And he ain’t alone.”

*********

Chris came awake with a start, looking over at Vin. The young man was twitching in a sleep that was nearer to stupor, and Chris wondered what his hallucinations were showing him. Couldn’t be anything good.

“I can’t,” Vin whispered, sounding young and terrified. “Please… You can’t—I—”

Chris placed a hand on the man’s sound arm. “It’s okay, Vin,” he murmured. “You’re safe.”

Vin shook his head in denial though he didn’t wake. His voice was almost a child’s as he whispered tragically, “You don’t gotta make me  _ watch _ …”

“Bastards,” Chris growled. He’d heard horror stories about Tascosa, though he’d never known an escapee to live long enough to tell much. Vin was about the only one he knew who’d gotten away free, and the hunter never could seem to talk much about what it was like. Chris was pretty sure he just didn’t let himself think about it, and it worried the old soldier that the poison was dredging up things better left unremembered.

Chris turned from his friend to fill a cup with water and froze as the sound of hoofbeats reached him. Unfamiliar hoofbeats, tentative but hurried in the moonlit night. Chris turned the lamp down to almost nothing, plunging the cabin into darkness. He abandoned the cup and hefted his rifle instead, heading for the front window and the approaching source of the sound.

It wasn’t the first time he’d wished Erskine could have given him better eyesight while he was at it. As it was, he was glad he’d kept the lantern light dim in deference to Vin’s comfort. He could make out shapes in the night, the bushes and trees surrounding his home standing out more and more as his eyes adjusted.

As the horse neared, Chris could smell her and her rider. The man had bathed recently—at Four Corners, maybe, as the soap had the same scent as the bath house’s bars. He was either bleeding or had been bled on. Vin said he’d hit Eli Joe, but that wouldn’t explain the recent blood Chris was smelling. He didn’t try to think on whose blood it might be if it wasn’t Eli Joe’s. 

He debated whether to announce himself or not as the horse and rider finally emerged from the trees along the track, just like Peso had done that morning. Best plan would have been to let the man come to him, but it had been a long fucking day, and Chris had had it.

“Whatever you want, I’m sure I can’t help you,” he called coldly.

The horse came to an abrupt stop, and her rider snorted almost silently. 

“You haven’t heard what I want yet,” the rider replied. His voice was gravel and humor and grated on Chris’s nerves.

“Fucking kill you, Eli,” Vin grumbled in the darkness behind Chris. He hoped the young man would stay still and spent, the way he’d been for the last hour. 

“Look, all I want is Tanner,” the man said reasonably. “There’s a bounty on his head, fair and square. I want it.”

“Damn sure that ain’t all you want,” Chris whispered before raising his voice. “Vin ain’t here,” he called, praying the man in question would keep silent.

“Oh come on, Larabee! We both know that ain’t true.” Eli Joe nudged his horse forward a little more, but not enough that the moonlight would fall on them fully and allow Chris to see him well enough to draw a bead on him. “Where else would he go?”

“You’d do better to move on,” Chris replied. “You aren’t getting what you came for.”

“I just came to take him home,” the man called.

“No,” Vin growled, shifting in the darkness behind Chris. The younger man was on his feet and headed for the door, stumbling almost blindly. “I ain’t going!” he screamed in defiance, lame left wing knocking over the chair as he came. “You can kill me, but I ain’t going back!”

Chris grabbed him as Vin flung the door open, and Eli Joe let loose a hail of bullets, emptying his pistol into the front wall of the cabin. Chris grunted as one of them found his left arm and yanked Vin down and to the side. 

“Tanner, what the hell are you doing?” he whispered angrily, listening for Eli Joe. The horse wasn’t moving, but Eli was, coming closer under cover of Vin’s reaction.

“You ain’t been there,” Vin said, his voice young and rough as he strained against Chris’s unbreakable grip. His eyes were glassy in the moonlight and there was heat coming off him again. Hell, Chris couldn’t even be sure he knew who he was talking to or when and where he was. “They drag me home and they’ll chain me. Make me watch things that—”

Chris grunted as another bullet plowed into his side, causing him to lose his grip on Vin’s arms. The winged man scrambled back away from him, terror in his face. His left wing folded up behind him, bent wrong and painful looking, but Chris had pain of his own to deal with.

“Chris Larabee, huh?” Eli Joe said mildly, framed in the light spilling in through the doorway. Another bullet hit Chris in the shoulder and he couldn’t help but cry out. Fuck, where the hell was his gun!? “You look like you could take some punishment, all right.” He stalked forward, giving Vin a hard kick in the stomach where the hunter was pressed up against the wall, and turned the lamp back up so the room was bathed in light. “I told you it wouldn’t kill you, didn’t I?” he asked Vin.

Vin was staring at Chris, a terror in his eyes that Chris couldn’t name.  _ “You don’t have to make me watch.” _ Vin had said… Watch them hurt people? Kill people?

Chris looked toward his pistol, abandoned near Vin’s leg. He inched closer, and Eli Joe’s foot was suddenly standing on his wrist. 

“I didn’t say you could move, Larabee,” he said coldly. He grinned at Vin again and aimed the gun at Chris’s own leg without pulling the trigger. Chris bided his time. “Don’t worry, Devin,” Eli Joe told Vin. “I won’t kill him either. Weller wants to see what makes him tick, and I’m sure the old man’ll have plans for him after that.”

Vin let out an absolutely inhuman howl and launched himself across the room, ramming Eli Joe into the wall behind where Chris lay. The two men fell in a heap with Vin on top, and Chris moved as quickly as his wounds would let him to get to his gun. He brought it to bear, but lay there, spellbound, as Vin pummeled Eli Joe into the ground like a child finally taking on the bully who had haunted him his whole life.

“You  _ ain’t _ taking me  _ back, _ ” Vin cried. “I promised you I’d kill you, and I  _ fucking well will _ , you son of a bitch!” He continued to beat the man, his body shuddering with the force of it, and Chris pulled himself to his feet. He could hear horses coming. Lady and Belle and Chaucer. Vin was still hitting Eli Joe, who lay stunned and bloody.

“Vin,” Chris called, not sure he could let the young man take on a cold-blooded murder like this. Vengeance was vengeance, but Vin had never seemed the kind who could live with killing a man with his bare hands. “Vin, you got him. It’s done.”

Vin stopped at that, nearly falling onto the man under him. He looked at his hands, bruised now, the right one bent wrong and shaking madly under the bandage Chris had wrapped it in. “It ain’t done, Chris,” he whispered, horror and hate in the words. “It’ll never be done. They’ll never let me go, damn it.”

Chris limped toward him, put a hand on his shoulder. “Neither will we.”

Vin looked up then, a shine of hopeless want in his eyes, and Chris moved to help him rise—

—and fired his gun at the same time, as Eli Joe got off a shot with a familiar Derringer that would have turned Chris’s gut cold if he hadn’t already smelled the approach of Ezra’s silver. Eli Joe’s bullet went into the ceiling. Chris’s went into the evil man’s brain.

“Chris!” Ezra’s call was panicked, though Chris thought with an inner smile that the gambler would more likely call it  _ urgent _ or somesuch.

“In here,” he called back unnecessarily, as Ezra, Buck, and JD burst in. Ezra stared at him in horror and opened his mouth to speak. “I’m all right,” Chris assured him before he could. Ezra hadn’t come out of this unscathed either. There was blood all over the side of his head and his arm was bleeding freely from a knife wound, but he was standing there bristling with anger. Chris figured the gambler might be better off than  _ he _ was at the moment.

“By what definition of the phrase?” Ezra demanded, a cold fear in his voice. He stepped forward to reach out for Chris and abruptly turned his attention to catching Vin as the winged man crumpled to the ground in a dead faint and started bucking madly. “My God, what’s wrong with him!?” Ezra asked, cradling Vin’s head to stop it hitting the floorboards. 

Chris collapsed beside the flyer and winced at the way Vin’s left wing was bent back again. “Poisoned,” he said shortly. “Ain’t meant to kill him. Just put him through hell.”

Buck made a noise that was half howl, half grunt and crouched beside them. Vin’s seizure was already easing and his eyes were half open now, though Chris couldn’t be sure he was aware of them. “Bastard shot Josiah on the way out of town.” Vin whimpered at the sound of his voice, but Buck put a hand on his forehead to comfort him. “Now, he’s fine, Mayhem. Nathan’s with him,” he assured him. Vin relaxed and Buck continued. “They’ll be along soon, and Nathan can have a look at the both of you.”

JD was looking at Eli Joe in wonderment. “What happened to him?” He looked over at Vin’s hands and the blood on them that clearly wasn’t all his own. “Gosh,” he murmured, answering his own question.

“Didn’t get quite what he deserved,” Chris said, letting himself fall backward as Ezra maneuvered around to catch him from behind. “Bullet in the brain was too damn easy for him.”

“It appears nothing was easy about any of this,” Ezra said quietly, seeming as comfortable with Chris laying on him as he could be. 

Chris thought about what Vin had said, about the men in Tascosa killing people to get to him, about them never letting him go. He looked over at Eli Joe’s corpse and sighed. They’d have to make sure he hadn’t been able to get a telegram out, alerting Tascosa to Vin’s location.

“Nothing at all,” he confirmed.

In fact, it could always get a whole lot harder.

********

It was more than a week later before Vin and Chris could take their usual afternoon spots in front of the saloon. Nathan hadn’t been pleased to have to extract so many bullets in one day, and the poison in Vin’s blood had flummoxed him and had to be left to run its course. It did so quicker than they’d expected it to—quicker than Nathan’s healing of that wing, certainly.

“It’s the same thing that lets me eat so damn much,” Vin explained, once the fever and the visions and the twitching had subsided the morning of the third day. He was stuck at the cabin until his wing was healed enough to fold up properly, but at least it was back in joint for the second time and on the mend. “They figured it made me good for something.”

There was more to the story there, but Vin wasn’t talking. Tascosa was suddenly a raw wound Nathan couldn’t heal. There was a guilt in Vin’s eyes when he looked at Chris or Ezra or Josiah, like he’d been the one to hurt them. Chris wished, and not for the first time, that he had Buck’s way of sussing out what a man was feeling. But Buck was back in Four Corners, taking care of moving that cattle drive the hell out of the area.

“They clearly didn’t know your true worth, Mr. Tanner,” Ezra said quietly from his place at the table, his arm and head stitched and bandaged. He’d ridden into town with the rest of the group that first night, but come back the next afternoon with provisions and news and never bothered to leave again. “At least we know that he wasn’t able to alert his fellows to your location. Mr. Jensen assures me that no telegrams went out from Four Corners that were not normal local business.”

Ezra’s tone was a little flat, his smile a little less than genuine. Something was going on in his head, but Chris just didn’t have it in him right now to figure out what it was. 

“And Dianday is going to be just fine,” Nathan assured Vin firmly. 

“Eli told me he’d killed him,” Vin said, eyes on his hands. The right one still had a broken bone from his assault on Eli Joe, but it would heal sound, thanks to Nathan.

“Well he didn’t,” Nathan stated sharply. “So you just sit there and heal up yourself so you can get the hell out of Chris’s hair.”

Chris had grinned at that. “He ain’t a bother, Nathan.” He’d looked at Ezra, playing solitaire at the table. “That damn gambler, on the other hand…” Ezra didn’t react the way he’d expected him to, simply looked up at him with an unreadable stare and went back to his cards.

In the end, that damn gambler had dragged Chris back to town, stating that during his recuperation, Chris was better off sleeping on a bed in the boarding house instead of a bedroll on his cabin floor while Vin was using his. 

Ezra wouldn’t talk about what was wrong, but Chris never made it to the boarding house even though his recuperation only lasted another day, since Nathan had taken out the bullets and prodded the wounds to hurry things along. Ezra’s bed was plenty big enough for the two of them and it seemed to give the man a measure of comfort.

Chris, too, though damned if he’d say it out loud.

And so it was that he found himself, six days later, in front of the saloon, sitting across the doorway from Vin with very little idea of what to say.

“Reckon I might get out of town for a bit,” Vin finally said.

Chris didn’t miss the sadness in his voice and clenched his jaw. “There’s safety in numbers, Vin,” he reminded him.

Vin smiled a tiny smile. “Josiah said something similar,” he replied, mourning in the tone. “The Comanche I was staying with when Eli Joe ambushed me thought that, too.”

“Vin…” Chris began.

“I ain’t leaving,” Vin said staunchly. “I just… I need to…” He sighed, banging his hand against his thigh in frustration. 

“You ever talk to Buck?” Chris asked. He knew Vin hadn’t. It would never occur to any of them, after all, which was just what Buck intended.

Vin looked over at him curiously. “About what?”

“Hillerton, South Carolina,” he said quietly. He’d apologize to Buck later, if he even had to. Buck’d probably understand the moment Vin said the words. “He spent some time there during the war.” His hand was suddenly a fist as he remembered what he’d seen when he’d finally found his friend, strung up and bleeding and tortured by what had been done to the others there.

“I’m not  _ right _ , Chris,” Vin said, like it was a mark of shame to be tossed sideways by what had happened. 

“You don’t have to be,” Chris replied, standing and moving to enter the saloon. “But you don’t have to be alone, either.”

And with that, he found the table the seven of them had claimed as their own and waited, smiling at Inez as she waved a bottle of whiskey at the bar and asked a question with her eyes. He lifted two fingers and nodded.

Inez came over and dropped the bottle and two glasses on the table and Chris poured the liquor and watched Vin walk in and sit at his right side and take one of the glasses in hand.

He didn’t talk, but he didn’t leave either.

Chris figured that was something, anyway.

******   
the end


End file.
